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What is cancer immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy is treatment that uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight diseases such as cancer. This can be done in a couple of ways.

Stimulating your own immune system to work harder or smarter to attack cancer cells

Giving you immune system components, such as man-made immune system proteins

Some types of immunotherapy are also sometimes called biologic therapy or biotherapy.

For a long time doctors suspected that the immune system could affect certain cancers. Even before the immune system was well understood, William Coley, MD, a New York surgeon, first noted that getting an infection after surgery seemed to help some cancer patients. In the late 1800s, he began treating cancer patients by infecting them with certain kinds of bacteria, which came to be known as Coley toxins. Although he had some success, his technique was overshadowed when other forms of cancer treatment, such as radiation therapy, came into use.

Since then, doctors have learned a great deal about the immune system and how it might be used to treat cancer. In the last few decades immunotherapy has become an important part of treating some types of cancer. Newer types of immune treatments are now being studied for many other types, and they’ll impact how we treat cancer in the future.

Immunotherapy includes treatments that work in different ways. Some boost the body’s immune system in a very general way. Others help train the immune system to attack cancer cells specifically.